Wireless base stations are routinely used to support wireless communications with various wireless devices. As base station technology has evolved, base stations have often required the use of much more complex transmission schemes. These transmission schemes usually employ complex modulation techniques that often require linear power amplification. Linear power amplification is often performed by one or more power amplifiers (PAs).
Power amplifiers typically consume a significant amount of power in base stations. For example, in the majority of cases, this may account for more than half of the total power consumed by a base station. This typically increases the cost of operating the base station. Moreover, linear power amplification may require one or more radio frequency (RF) power amplifiers to operate in a “backed off” state. This state decreases a base station's overall efficiency because RF power amplifiers are much less efficient when in the backed off state.